August 17, 2020 • No Comments • National News

ABC NewsBY: AARON KATERSKY

(HONOLULU) — Actress Lori Loughlin should spend two months in prison for cheating her daughter’s way into the University of Southern California, federal prosecutors said Monday in a memo to the judge ahead of her sentencing Friday.

Loughlin’s husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, should spend five months in prison and the couple should pay a fine of $400,000, the memo stated.

Both stars pleaded guilty to their involvement in the college admissions scandal, though prosecutors portrayed Giannulli as the more active parent in the scheme, by engaging more frequently with mastermind Rick Singer, by directing the payments and “by steamrolling an honest high school counselor who tried to do the right thing.”

According to the sentencing memo, Loughlin, Giannulli and their younger daughter discussed in January 2018 how to avoid the chance that the counselor would disrupt the scheme.

“When their daughter asked whether she should list USC as her top choice school, Loughlin replied: ‘Yes… But it might be a flag for the weasel to meddle,'” the memo said. “Giannulli added: ‘F— him,’ and remarked that the counselor was a ‘nosy bastard.'”

Prosecutors said the couple committed a serious crime.

“Over the course of two years, they engaged twice in Singer’s fraudulent scheme,” the sentencing memo said. “They involved both their daughters in the fraud, directing them to pose in staged photographs for use in fake athletic profiles and instructing one daughter how to conceal the scheme from her high school counselor.”

Even though “Loughlin took a less active role,” prosecutors said the “Fuller House” actress “was nonetheless fully complicit.”

In May, Loughlin, 56, and Giannulli, 57, pleaded guilty, via a Zoom call, to a federal judge for their roles in the massive college admissions scam. They had both been accused of paying Singer $500,000 to get their daughters, Isabella Rose Giannulli and Olivia Jade Giannulli, into USC as crew recruits — even though neither girl had ever rowed competitively.

“Giannulli emailed Singer a doctored photo of daughter Olivia Jade on a rowing machine to cast her as an experienced coxswain and made purported charitable payments, to facilitate his daughter’s fraudulent admission to USC,” according to U.S. attorney Eric Rosen. “They conspired with Rick Singer and others to commit wire fraud.”

Had the case gone to trial in the fall, as planned, Rosen said prosecutors would have used recorded telephone calls, documents, emails and witness testimony to prove the couple’s guilt. In pleading guilty, Loughlin and Giannulli dropped previous assertions that their payments were charitable and prosecutors had withheld exculpatory evidence.

Prosecutors have charged over 50 suspects, including parents and coaches, in the investigation that the FBI been dubbed “Operation Varsity Blues.”

ABC News’ Kate Hodgson and Ivan Pereira contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved

August 17, 2020 • No Comments • National News

iStock/MattZ90BY: ALEXANDER MALLIN

(HONOLULU) — The United States Department of Justice arrested and charged a former intelligence officer with the CIA and FBI for selling highly classified U.S. secrets to China, according to court records unsealed in Hawaii on Monday.

Federal prosecutors said Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, a 67-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen living in Honolulu, worked as a CIA officer from 1982 to 1989 — and starting as early as 2001, an FBI investigation found he had “become a compromised asset” of China’s Ministry of State Security.

Ma was allegedly captured on both video and audio recordings holding a series of meetings with at least five MSS officials in 2001 in Hong Kong where he “disclosed a substantial amount of highly classified national defense information,” court records say.

The information included details about the CIA’s international operations, cover used by CIA officers, identities of CIA officers and human assets and other internal CIA intelligence.

Ma and a relative not named in the criminal complaint allegedly received $50,0000 in the meeting, which was captured on tape.

Following his meetings in Hong Kong, Ma in 2002 allegedly applied for a position with the FBI and after a series of background checks and interviews started his employment as a contract linguist for the FBI’s Honolulu field office in 2004, all while maintaining communication with his Chinese handlers about his efforts.

The indictment doesn’t make clear when Ma’s work on China’s behalf first became known to federal investigators.

Between 2004 and 2010 Ma “regularly gathered documents marked with U.S. classification markings” with the “intent to provide them to his MSS handlers during regular trips he made to China,” prosecutors said.

In January 2019, an undercover agent with the FBI then met with Ma while posing as an MSS officer, showing Ma the video of his 2001 meeting with MSS officers and asking him to identify the individuals from the video.

Ma believed the undercover agent and agreed to identify the individuals, not knowing he was being recorded the entire time. Then, in a separate meeting, the undercover agent paid Ma $2,000 for providing the information.

Ma is expected to make his initial appearance before a federal judge on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court in Hawaii.

He has been charged with conspiracy to communicate national defense information to aid a foreign government. He faces life in prison if convicted, the DOJ said.

A public defender for Ma did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.

Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved

August 17, 2020 • No Comments • National News

iStock/Andrei StanescuBY: QUINN OWEN

(WASHINGTON) — The federal government agency that handles United States asylum requests, processes visa applications and grants citizenship is preparing to furlough most of its employees while would-be citizens remain stuck waiting to get naturalized ahead of the November election.

Originally planned for the beginning of August, the furloughs were bumped back to the end of the month after Democrats and independent immigration experts questioned whether such action was necessary amid to the coronavirus pandemic.

“I think it would be an extraordinary travesty to basically kick to the curb all of these civil servants and basically withhold their salaries in the middle of an economic crisis,” said Doug Rand, a former White House policy advisor during the Obama administration, who now specializes in immigration legal services. “Not to mention bringing the immigration system to a grinding halt when there’s absolutely no need to do so.”

Joseph Edlow, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ deputy director, told lawmakers at the end of July that the agency was able to catch up on its backlog of 100,000 pending naturalization ceremonies delayed by the pandemic. However, the average number of monthly naturalizations still trails far below prior years by tens of thousands, according to data from the Department of Homeland Security.

“All USCIS operations, including naturalization ceremonies, will be impacted by a furlough,” spokesperson Joe Sowers said in a statement. “At this time, we do not have the number of naturalization ceremonies that will be impacted. In the event of a furlough, we will continue to conduct naturalization ceremonies, but we anticipate it will be on a more limited basis.”

An analysis from the Migration Policy Institute found budget problems at USCIS — which is almost entirely funded by the immigration application fees it collects — were apparent well before the pandemic and likely the result of President Donald Trump’s push for “extreme vetting” of applicants.

As USCIS reduced its year-over-year surplus goals, the agency’s carry-over balance dropped into negative territory in 2019, according to data compiled by MPI.

The citizenship agency is now asking for $1.2 billion from Congress, which was expected to be addressed in an additional coronavirus relief package before negotiations between Democrats and the White House stalled out. The request accounts for about a quarter of the agency’s $4.8 billion operating budget for 2020.

“Based on the latest estimates of surplus funding that will carry over into fiscal year 2021, I believe that the agency can and should delay their furlough of 13,000 dedicated public servants until September 30, 2020,” said Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who serves as the vice chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations.

A group of Democrats wrote to Senate leadership last month asking for the funding to be provided on the condition of increased transparency and assurance that the money would not be used for immigration enforcement or anti-fraud measures that replicate the work of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In a move that would have immigrants footing the bill, USCIS also plans to increase the cost of the naturalization application by more than 80%, according to the finalized version of the fee structure first proposed last year. The plan includes eliminating an $85 service fee for some applicants.

Starting in October, the U.S. will also become part of just a handful of countries — including Iran, Australia and Fiji — to charge for asylum with the addition of a $50 application fee. The fee that immigrants, including asylum seekers, pay for work permits will also increase by 34%.

Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved

August 17, 2020 • No Comments • National News

iStock/smolaw11BY: MEREDITH DELISO

(CHAPEL HILL, N.C.) — A week after its first day of classes, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill announced it will be shifting all undergraduate classes remotely amid several outbreaks of COVID-19 on campus.

Starting Wednesday, all undergraduate in-person instruction will go digital for the rest of the fall semester, Chancellor Kevin M. Guskiewicz and Executive Vice Chancellor Robert A. Blouin said in a letter to the school on Monday.

The school leaders said the “current data presents an untenable situation.”

In the past week, from Aug. 10-16, the campus’ positivity rate increased nearly fivefold, from 2.8% to 13.6%, officials said. During that period, there were 130 new confirmed cases in students and five in employees, according to the school’s COVID-19 dashboard.

As of Monday morning, 177 students were in isolation and 349 in quarantine both on and off the campus. Most students who have tested positive have had mild symptoms, officials said.

Residential halls, which began move-in on Aug. 3, have been hotbeds of virus activity. On Sunday, the school announced its fourth cluster of COVID-19 cases in three days. Three clusters — which refers to five or more cases in close proximity — were found in residence halls, while the fourth was discovered at a fraternity. The school has not released the exact number of cases in each cluster, citing privacy laws.

Cases in Orange County, in which the university sits, have been on the rise since Aug. 11 as well, following a gradual decline since early July. There are 1,475 confirmed cases as of Monday, according to the county.

The school leaders said they made the decision “in consultation with state and local health officials, Carolina’s infectious disease experts and the UNC System.”

“We know that these trends aren’t just affecting our campus: they have escalated the concerns of our neighbors, co-workers and friends in and around the Chapel Hill and Carrboro communities,” Guskiewicz and Blouin said. “The health and well-being of the good people of our greater Carolina community are just as important to us as that of our students, faculty and staff.”

The school, which has more than 19,000 undergraduate students, had already started the fall with reduced numbers on campus. Residence halls were at under 60% capacity and under 30% of total classroom seats were taught in-person, officials said.

As of Monday, about 21,000 students were participating in in-person learning, of which 13,262 were undergraduate students, a school spokesperson confirmed to ABC News.

To further help de-densify the campus, undergraduate students currently living in campus housing can change their residential plans with no penalty.

UNC’s graduate, professional and health affairs schools are unaffected at this time, school officials said.

The move comes following calls for the campus to go remote.

In a July 29 letter to the school officials, Orange County Health Director Quintana Stewart recommended they consider virtual classes for at least the first five weeks of the fall semester, ABC station WTVD in Durham reported.

Ahead of Monday’s announcement, Barbara Rimer, dean of UNC’s Gillings School of Global Public Health, also recommended the school make the transition in the wake of the discovered clusters.

“After only one week of campus operations, with growing numbers of clusters and insufficient control over the off-campus behavior of students (and others), it is time for an off-ramp,” she said in a post. “We have tried to make this work, but it is not working.”

As for the spring semester, the school will make a decision “in the future, in consultation with our public health experts and local health officials,” a spokesperson told ABC News.

UNC President Peter Hans said Monday there currently weren’t plans to make similar changes at any of the system’s 16 other institutions.

“Each campus is different, and I expect situations to evolve differently,” he said in a statement. “In any circumstance, we will be grounded by reliable public health data and prevailing local health conditions.”

Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved